United States presidential election in Florida, 2004

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United States presidential election in Florida
November 2, 2004
Nominee		George W. Bush	John Kerry
Party		Republican	Democratic
Home state		Texas	Massachusetts
Running mate		Dick Cheney	John Edwards
Electoral vote		27	0
Popular vote		3,964,522	3,583,544
Percentage		52.1%	47.1%
Electoral results by county
Incumbent President George W. Bush Republican President-elect George W. Bush Republican

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Florida was once again under the national spotlight because of the facts that the swing state had the largest number of electoral votes (27) and the memory of the controversy surrounding the 2000 Florida vote still fresh in the minds of voters.

Incumbent George W. Bush was able to defeat John Kerry with 52% of the vote. Bush's margin of victory of 5% is much safer than his tiny victory in 2000. The turnout was also much higher, going from an estimated 6 million voters to over 7.5 million voters showing up to vote.^[1]

Contents 1 Campaign 2 Analysis 3 Election Results 3.1 Results by County 4 Controversies 5 Electors 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Campaign

This state was heavily targeted a swing state. Over the course of the election, Bush visited the state 15 times to Kerry's 18 times. Also, both candidates spend heavily on television advertisments, spending an estimated $3 million each week.^[2]

Throughout the general election, Bush never lost a pre-election poll. Although the margins of victory were very small in the summer. The final 3 poll averaged showed Bush leading with 51% to Kerry's 44%.^[3]

[edit] Analysis

In the prior election, Ralph Nader obtained over 2% of the vote, thus Bush won with less than 50% of the vote, making his approval rating and his brother's approval ratings the deciding factor of the state. Polls throughout the campaign indicated that Florida was too close to call, prompting concerns about a repeat of the 2000 fiasco. However, the high popularity of George W. Bush's brother, Republican Governor Jeb Bush, contributed to a relatively comfortable victory for Bush, by a margin of 5% over his Democratic rival, John Kerry.

While the South Florida metropolitan area mostly voted for Kerry, the other parts of the state mainly supported Bush, being culturally closer to the rest of the southern United States than to Miami, home to large Hispanic and Jewish populations, as well as retirees and transplants from the largely liberal Northeastern United States.

Key to Bush's victory was increased turnout in Republican areas. Bush's margin of victory in several counties topped 70%, particularly in the Florida Panhandle. Bush also won a significant number of heavily populated and fast-growing areas including the Jacksonville area, the entire Tampa Bay area, Southwest Florida, suburban Orlando, the Space Coast, and Ocala.

[edit] Election Results

United States presidential election in Florida, 2004[4]
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Republican	George W. Bush (Inc.)	Dick Cheney	3,964,522	52.1%	27
	Democratic	John Kerry	John Edwards	3,583,544	47.1%	0
	Reform Party	Ralph Nader	Peter Camejo	32,971	0.4%	0
	Others	-	-	28,773	0.4%	0
Totals				-	100.00%	27
Voter turnout				59%		—

[edit] Results by County

County	John F. Kerry		George W. Bush		Others
Alachua	56.1%	62,504	42.9%	47,762	1.0%	1,062
Baker	21.9%	2,180	77.7%	7,738	0.4%	37
Bay	28.1%	21,068	71.2%	53,404	0.7%	552
Bradford	29.9%	3,244	69.6%	7,557	0.5%	54
Brevard	41.6%	110,309'	57.7%	153,068	0.8%	2,085
Broward	64.2%	453,873	34.6%	244,674	1.2%	8,325
Calhoun	35.5%	2,116	63.4%	3,782	1.1%	65
Charlotte	42.9%	34,256	55.7%	44,428	1.4%	1,102
Citrus	42.1%	29,277	56.9%	39,500	1.0%	690
Clay	23.3%	18,971	76.2%	62,078	0.5%	446
Collier	34.1%	43,892	65.0%	83,631	0.9%	1,160
Columbia	32.1%	8,031	67.1%	16,758	0.8%	202
DeSoto	41.1%	3,913	58.1%	5,524	0.8%	73
Dixie	30.4%	1,960	68.8%	4,434	0.7%	48
Duval	41.6%	158,610	57.8%	220,190	0.6%	2,261
Escambia	33.7%	48,329	65.3%	93,566	1.0%	1,383
Flagler	48.3%	18,578	51.0%	19,633	0.7%	269
Franklin	40.5%	2,401	58.5%	3,472	1.0%	58
Gadsden	69.7%	14,629	29.8%	6,253	0.5%	102
Gilchrist	28.8%	2,017	70.4%	4,936	0.9%	62
Glades	41.0%	1,718	58.3%	2,443	0.6%	27
Gulf	33.1%	2,407	66.0%	4,805	0.9%	65
Hamilton	44.5%	2,260	55.0%	2,792	0.5%	27
Hardee	29.6%	2,149	69.7%	5,049	0.7%	51
Hendry	40.5%	3,960	58.9%	5,757	0.6%	58
Hernando	46.2%	37,187	52.9%	42,635	0.9%	725
Highlands	37.0%	15,347	62.4%	25,878	0.7%	271
Hillsborough	46.2%	214,132	53.0%	245,576	0.8%	3,514
Holmes	21.8%	1,810	77.3%	6,412	0.9%	78
Indian River	39.0%	23,956	60.1%	36,938	0.8%	520
Jackson	38.1%	7,555	61.2%	12,122	0.7%	130
Jefferson	55.3%	4,135	44.1%	3,298	0.6%	45
Lafayette	25.4%	845	74.0%	2,460	0.6%	20
Lake	38.9%	48,221	60.0%	74,389	1.1%	1,340
Lee	39.0%	93,860	59.9%	144,176	1.1%	2,631
Leon	61.5%	83,873	37.8%	51,615	0.7%	891
Levy	36.5%	6,074	62.5%	10,410	1.0%	168
Liberty	35.4%	1,070	63.8%	1,927	0.8%	24
Madison	48.8%	4,050	50.5%	4,191	0.8%	63
Manatee	42.7%	61,262	56.6%	81,318	0.7%	1,041
Marion	41.0%	57,271	58.2%	81,283	0.8%	1,123
Martin	41.7%	30,208	57.1%	41,362	1.2%	883
Miami-Dade	52.9%	409,732	46.6%	361,095	0.5%	3,899
Monroe	49.7%	19,654	49.2%	19,467	1.0%	414
Nassau	26.2%	8,573	72.6%	23,783	1.2%	387
Okaloosa	21.6%	19,368	77.6%	69,693	0.8%	695
Okeechobee	42.3%	5,153	57.2%	6,978	0.5%	59
Orange	49.8%	193,354	49.6%	192,539	0.6%	2,151
Osceola	47.0%	38,633	52.5%	43,117	0.6%	454
Palm Beach	60.4%	328,687	39.1%	212,688	0.6%	3,247
Pasco	44.4%	84,749	54.1%	103,230	1.5%	2,937
Pinellas	49.5%	225,460	49.6%	225,686	0.9%	4,211
Polk	40.8%	86,009	58.6%	123,559	0.6%	1,262
Putnam	40.1%	12,412	59.1%	18,311	0.8%	250
Saint Johns	30.6%	26,399	68.6%	59,196	0.8%	695
Saint Lucie	51.8%	51,835	47.6%	47,592	0.6%	636
Santa Rosa	21.8%	14,659	77.3%	52,059	0.9%	589
Sarasota	45.2%	88,442	53.5%	104,692	1.3%	2,518
Seminole	41.3%	76,971	58.1%	108,172	0.6%	1,052
Sumter	36.4%	11,584	62.2%	19,800	1.4%	458
Suwanee	28.6%	4,522	70.6%	11,153	0.8%	127
Taylor	35.5%	3,049	63.7%	5,467	0.8%	65
Union	26.8%	1,251	72.6%	3,396	0.6%	28
Volusia	50.5%	115,519	48.9%	111,924	0.7%	1,496
Wakulla	41.6%	4,896	57.6%	6,777	0.8%	90
Walton	25.9%	6,213	73.2%	17,555	0.9%	208
Washington	28.1%	2,912	71.1%	7,369	0.8%	85

[edit] Controversies

During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, numerous allegations of irregularities were made concerning the voting process in Florida. These allegations included missing and uncounted votes, machine malfunction, and a lack of correlation between the vote count and exit polling.

[edit] Electors

Main Article: List of United States presidential electors, 2004

Technically the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Florida is allocated 27 electors because it has 25 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 27 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 27 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for President and Vice President. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 13, 2004 to cast their votes for President and Vice President. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from Florida. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.^[5]

1. Al Austin
2. Allan Bense
3. Sally Bradshaw
4. Al Cardenas
5. Jennifer Carroll
6. Armando Codina
7. Sharon Day
8. Maria de la Milera
9. Jim Dozier
10. David Griffin
11. Fran Hancock
12. Cynthia Handley
13. William Harrison
14. Al Hoffman
15. Bill Jordan
16. Tom Lee
17. Randall McElheney
18. Jeanne McIntosh
19. Nancy Mihm
20. Gary Morse
21. Marilyn Paul
22. Tom Petway
23. Sergio Pino
24. John Thrasher
25. Janet Westling
26. Robert Woody
27. Zach Zachariah

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official election results
• First set of unofficial returns

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